The Influence and Impact of Music On Your Writing

PivotalSyntax · Mar 28, 2012

I'm interested in reading about how music (if at all) influences your writing, ideas, or thoughts--basically anything to do with the writing process.

I view music as another facet of the same artistic gem. I may lack ability insofar as composing and performing music goes, but I have acute appreciation of music. It's not a pretentious appreciation of music--I simply enjoy soaking in music, tasting the personal effects that it has on me. I dwell on music, I think about it, I experience it, I enjoy it. Every genre of music that I listen to brings something else to the table. I feel like it more than simply a visceral experience--it is intellectual and emotional to listen to music.

Music resonates in ways that literature can't, just as literature will resonate in ways that music cannot. But I feel that they must in some way enrich each other. I feel like there must be similarities--but I am having a hard time objectively finding these or articulating them.

I want to find an expression of how music impacts one's writing and ideas--and I'm calling on the views of other people to try and come closer to this amalgamation of two art forms.

Williebee · Mar 28, 2012

The right music helps me write. It may set the rhythm, or help put me "in that place."

Great music (or music that I think is great) hurts my writing, because it distracts me and carries me away from the tale.

Sage · Mar 28, 2012

Huge impact on my writing.

From inspiration to motivation, the right songs can keep me excited about a novel when I'm stuck or wading through the Great Swampy Middle or just looking for a Shiny New Idea. I make a playlist for most of my novels, and I've found that those that I edit and query are almost always the ones that I have a completed soundtrack and those that I abandon usually do not. The music keeps me enthusiastic about a novel when I'm editing and when I want to return to it later, if I've taken a break from it. Creating the playlist is almost as important to me as creating the novel.

The songs themselves can spark the initial idea, evoke the right emotions I want to feel for a scene, help me perfect a character I'm learning about, and inspire plot points that I might never have come up with.

My current WIP had a five-song playlist from the first time I started writing it a couple of years ago. I gave up 5K in, due to some plot points that weren't working and another SNI I had. But a couple of months ago I was looking for a playlist with songs I don't listen to to much, and I put it on that 5-song playlist to wake me up in the morning. And by the time I got to work that same morning, I was ready to tackle the novel again.

On a similar but different note, I find that there's a certain instrumental soundtrack that I write best while listening to it. This is different from the soundtracks I create.

jjdebenedictis · Mar 28, 2012

I can't handle listening to music when I write, especially if it has a vocal track. I also can't have the radio on the background or have someone talking in the same room as me.

It's as if the parts of my brain that handle understanding speech and speaking (or writing) have an overlapping circuit. If information is going in, then nothing can get out, i.e. I can't write words if someone else is speaking words that I can hear.

I'm a bit better with instrumental pieces, but even then, silence is an improvement.

flarue · Mar 28, 2012

I too have a strong appreciation for music, so it definitely has an impact on me. Some of the plot of my current WIP has to do with music, so it makes perfect sense in my mind to have something playing. I can write without music, but there are times when it's just necessary for me to have something on that relates somehow in my mind to the story. I have a playlist that is probably 30 songs long (and growing), and all of the songs fit certain situations or characters. They set the tone or mood for whatever the scene calls for. Sometimes songs even inspire new scenes. I don't know how it happens, but there are times when I'll hear something, and pictures or little movies begin to form in my head.

Solunar · Mar 28, 2012

Music often makes writing easier for me. I usually listen to non-english songs so I don't pay attention to the lyrics, but rather to the beat and rhythm. Upbeat songs for happy scenes and moody ones for sad scenes always works. Sometimes the visuals from an MV gives inspiration too.

heyjude · Mar 29, 2012

I love music while I write. Often a lyric will trigger something for me--a new way of looking at a character, a scene, etc.

Interestingly, if the music is too close (coming from my computer) it's a total distraction, but if the speaker is a few feet away it's a good thing.

KellyAssauer · Mar 29, 2012

I can write with music on, but I need silence to edit. When I edit, I get deep into the internal sounds of the sentence in front of me: each lift, accent and all the tonal qualities. It's at this point where I feel as if I am editing a form of music... so other outside sources of sound become a considerable distraction.

Gilroy Cullen · Mar 29, 2012

I admit, noise is a crutch for me when writing. It annoyed the crap out of my college roommate.

I like to have something going to allow me to keep my thoughts moving. It could be a series of songs (I, like many before me, have multiple playlists) or a TV show or a movie.

Like others, sometimes they spark an idea, or influence a character, to a point that having that noise helps my brain find the character.

Interestingly, I find my action scenes work best when there's a hockey game on in the background.

Sai · Mar 29, 2012

Oh, I recently wrote a blog post about this! I'll just quote myself.

From My Blog said:
I often listen to music as I write. Sometimes I do this for very base reasons, like to get my blood pumping and psych myself up for another round of writing (the Mortal Kombat theme is my go-to song for this. In fact I’m listening to it as I write this blog post). But more often than not it’s because the song has meaning to me and relates to the story in my mind. It’s not as simple as say, listening to a song about cowboys while writing a western. For me it’s more about how the mood of the song captures something that I’m trying to express in my work. For example, I recently finished a novella that was largely inspired by the sense of unease I get when I listen to ‘I Am The Walrus.’ Lately I’ve been listening to MGMT’s song ‘Electric Feel’ on repeat as I try to find a way to translate the smooth elation I feel whenever I hear that song. Often I will get an idea from a specific lyric, but more often it’s the music itself that gets to me. I like it when a song can make me feel something so deeply that in turn I want to figure out how to express that same feeling through a totally different medium.

heza · Mar 29, 2012

Sometimes, I'll come to a perfect moment where I've got a fuzzy thing happening in my WIP and then, I'll hear a song that pulls everything into focus. Usually, it's the emotion of the song (because my stories are character driven and my characters act on their emotions). I'll do my best to translate the emotion of the song into a specific aspect of the story. For example, the relationship between two of my important characters is based entirely on Adam Lambert's "What Do You Want from Me?" A post-death scene is heavily influenced by Linkin Park's "Leave Out All the Rest."

TheaBlowsKisses · Mar 29, 2012

I rarely listen to music when I write, because I'll wind up paying more attention to the music than the writing. (I'm actually a former music teacher, but these days, I'm only really involved with music for a few weeks in the summer.) Every now and then, however, it's good for a change of pace.

One time, though, when I was writing a short story, I happened to remember a piece of wind literature I had heard YEARS earlier. I'd only gotten a little ways into the story (but I had it all planned out), and I managed to dig up a recording of the piece on youtube, and it was actually eerie how well the two complimented each other. (There were surprise!dragons at the end of the story, and the piece was called "Flight of the Griffin" - close enough, I say!)

My go-to music for when I want something on while I'm writing is the (complete) 1812 Overture. It covers nearly every emotion I can think of, and Ms. Lazy over here doesn't have to worry about changing tracks for different scenes.

Hip-Hop-a-potamus · Mar 29, 2012

Since I write '20s based stuff, I listen to old scratchy jazz from that period. Even my IPOD is loaded with it (on a playlist to keep it separate). I also have stuff like Steve Earle, The Afghan Whigs, and Firefall. I'm nothing, if not eclectic.

The combination of the music (for my devil-may-care women of the time) and my Cassell's Slang Dictionary really helped me develop voices for these women.

meowzbark · Mar 29, 2012

I'm so much more creative when I'm listening to music and different types of music produces different results for me.

- 90's music helps me get in the head of my teenage MC, since that's the music I listened to as a teenager.
- Classical music helps me when I'm trying to figure out what happens next in a story.
- Horror movie soundtracks helps me when I'm writing scary/mysterious scenes.
- Rock music helps me when I'm writing my adult MC.
- When writing a scene at an arcade, I put on some electronica/dance music and it helped me visualize what my MC was experiencing.

Xelebes · Mar 29, 2012

I listen to techno. I write sci-fi. The influence is palpitable.

GingerGunlock · Mar 29, 2012

I have a playlist I put together for my very first NaNoWriMo (2007!) that I frequently will listen to while writing.

I also have a Nirvana channel on Pandora that I'm using heavily right now.

Sometims a song (or line or title) will give me a story idea, or give me something to reference while righting, for fun.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 29, 2012

No effect that I know of. I love music, but rarely listen to music when I write, or think about it while writing.

Al Stevens · Mar 29, 2012

I'm a musician by trade (retired). I don't listen to music while doing anything that requires concentration, because music is an intellectual distraction. My car radio gets used only when my wife drives.

This is one of those topics that comes up a lot. We're all different, and it's just another way to talk about ourselves.

Al Stevens · Mar 29, 2012

Oh, yeah, one exception. When my writing is song lyrics, I definitely think about the music if it was written first. Should be obvious.

Bukarella · Mar 29, 2012

I can't listen to anything with words when I write, but I will find something instrumental to keep the noise in the background, except...
after listening to this brass quintet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFR1Vsp8ZN0 about fifteen times in a row, I went back into 30K manuscript and gave my MC a horn to play plus added detailed music descriptions to holidays and gatherings.

I put on that piece and play it over and over whenever I work on scenes set at the royal court, or describing the journey, or working in MC playing his horn (heh).

P.S. I don't think anyone in my house want to hear it ever again. :Shrug:

Can't say that I'm done with it. :tongue

SomethingOrOther · Mar 31, 2012

I usually listen to music when I write. It fades into the background and I hardly notice it. These are the five songs I've listened to the most in the past two or so weeks while writing (not including one I composed):

A Perfect Circle — Imagine

A Fine Frenzy — What I Wouldn't Do

Olivia Broadfield — Miss Me

Death Cab for Cutie — Cath

Brazilian Girls — Me Gustas Cuando Callas

Kewii · Apr 1, 2012

SomethingOrOther said:
I usually listen to music when I write. It fades into the background and I hardly notice it.

I'm like this. I like to have music on when I write, but I barely notice it when I get into it.

I find I'm the same with sports. I usually have my Ipod, but I never know what I actually listened to because I get focused. On Friday, I had a rugby tournament and they were blaring the music while we played. I didn't hear a single song while I was on the pitch.

Celeste Carrara · Apr 1, 2012

I listen to music when I write. Certain types of music get me in the right mood for particular scenes. When I'm editing I have to have complete silence.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 1, 2012

Negative. It just impacted on the surface.

LongWave · Apr 3, 2012

I suppose there are two ways to look at this. Music while I write? Most definitely. A lot of instrumental soundtracks. Lyrics sometimes get distracting. But then again, I love to have some Simon and Garfunkel on when I start, then slowly transition into some jazz or classical stuff.

Or maybe you meant music that inspires ideas (before the actual writing process)? I am sometimes walking around when a song pops into my head and an entire fictional storyline is created. Last time it happened with a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune.

And here is a great drony song that I probably listened to a gajillion times in the course of writing in the past year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3A6Pu3dwAU

The Influence and Impact of Music On Your Writing

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